The use of well-designed social media graphics is essential when it comes to enhancing your brand online. Find out why here.

In the 21st century, it's not enough for a business to simply have an online presence. With almost 4.5 billion people making use of social media worldwide, a company will only do well if it makes use of the social network.

However, it gets even more specific than that.

All social media — other than Twitter — are visual forms of media. If you want to succeed in 2021, you have to make use of social media graphics.

Images on social media aren't easy to figure out, however. Social medial visuals are a form of art that you have to study to perfect and use to help our company profit.

This article will walk you through some tips you should know when using graphics on social media.

1. Put Your Logo In Your Profile Picture

Branding is all about the perception that other people have of your company. It doesn't matter if you have the best intentions in the world. If you can put those thoughts into the minds of other people, you'll dominate as a brand.

One of the first steps to building a great brand is to make people remember you. Logos are important because they're visual stand-ins for your companies values, employees, and products. If you can get your logo into potential customers' heads, you are that much closer to making a sale.

In the 2020s, businesses need to start designing their logos specifically to look good in social media profile pictures. When they do this, they're communicating to customers not only that they have a memorable company, but that they have a company that can compete into the future.

It's time for businesses to start reading in between the lines. The COVID 19 pandemic saw a vast increase in internet usage. This means that the gap between "real life" and "online" is rapidly disappearing.

If you want people to remember you in the real world you need to show them your logo online.

2. Stay Consistent

On the internet, there's a seemingly unlimited amount of possibilities for visual content. You can have hand-drawn images, computer-animated images, photographs of humans, photographs of animals, abstract images, color fields, the list goes on and on.

In the beginning, you're going to want to try many different styles. It's tempting to keep up this gleeful experimentation.

However, if you want people to recognize your brand, you're going to have to pick a style and stick with it.

This doesn't mean you can't explore. In fact, taking the approach of variations on a theme will help people realize just how many possibilities there are within the confines of your brand. However, a style that tries to encompass everything winds up saying nothing.

Pick a visual style and figure out what you want this visual style to say. When you make your message specific, you make it memorable.

3. Understand Your Demographics

As in all types of advertising, it's important to run demographic research before you market a visual social media campaign.

Social media is not advertising in the traditional sense. You're not grabbing people and saying hey! buy this, you're instead putting yourself on the path of success. You're allowing people to stumble upon your content and discover about you naturally.

However, social media work is based on algorithms, and certain types of groups are more likely to find your page than others.

Creativity is important, but it's also important to know what your customers want to see. If you're dealing with young people you might want to use retro 80s fonts and images — especially if you're a fashion company —  since those are big in pop culture right now.

However, it's important to understand what is cool about a specific style. The 80s retro style is all about flashy neon lights, and bright shades of blue and pink. It's not about parachute pants or scrunchies.

4. Make Sharing a Priority

One of the toughest parts of a visual social media strategy to manage is shareability. It's one thing to create an image that stays in your customer's minds. It's yet another to create an image that they want to share, thereby bringing in more customers.

Meme culture is extremely important to popularity on the internet. It's helpful to think of memes less as images and more as ideas that people want to develop and expand upon.

The best companies in the 2020s will be able to create images that people are able to easily share and expand upon. However, this will be tough to manage. This is why we recommend working with a great graphic design company.

5. Think About Construction of Visual Information

The last thing you want to do when making visual posts is to confuse and mislead your customers.

If you're making a post that's explaining a new product or service and contains a lot of information, make sure that said information is arranged in a way that makes sense and helps your readers understand.  

The most important information should be presented the biggest, the least important the smallest. Put important information towards the top of the page, even if it's not textual information, so you can help your audience "read" the images.

Make sure that you use every bit of space you can when displaying information. Leave nothing random and to chance. Make use of both axes and you're less likely to get misunderstood.

Make Use of Social Media Graphics

As you can see, the world of social media graphics is about more than just posting cool photographs online. You need to make sure that you have your logo in your profile picture, keep a consistent visual style, understand the demographics you're dealing with, make your posts sharable, and think about your visual construction.

For more articles like this, check out our article on graphic design tips for beginners.

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